Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

Please let me know what you think:

"Beginning in March 2017, managers who have 2-20 direct reports, do not already have a direct reports group, and have permissions to create groups in Outlook, will automatically have a private group created for them with their direct reports. The manager will be added as an owner, and the direct reports of the manager will be added as members by default. The group will be named "<Manager's Name>'s direct reports", but that can be edited."

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

I haven't seen this feature. It might not yet have been deployed. It might also be a feature designed for small tenants.

I do not think this is a good idea for large to enterprise tenants. In fact, it is a rotten idea. Enterprise tenants like to control their GAL and this sounds like a way to clutter that GAL up with a profusion of groups that will quickly become an uncontrollable mess. Unless, of course, Microsoft is going to update the newly-created groups on an ongoing basis to adjust membership based on changing reporting relationships. Creating groups is easy; maintaining them over time is bloody hard. That's why many enterprises have their own solutions (often integrated with HR processes) to do this kind of thing. It is a special challenge when organizations do not populate AAD with reporting relationships - or keep this data current, a problem that is more prevalent than you might think.

It's an example of a bright idea that looked good on a whiteboard but might be horrible in the field.

Now I look forward to be proven wrong by the disclosure of a super-competenent system for tracking reporting relationships across large organizations and behind-the-scenes automatic adjustment of group memberships, removal of unwanted groups, and so on.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

> Unless, of course, Microsoft is going to update the newly-created groups on an ongoing basis to adjust membership based on changing reporting relationships.

I've no special knowledge, but I expect they will be dynamic groups so self updating.

It doesnt seem like a great idea to me, and we are certainly going to turn it off. Many users have already created groups, this would be huge duplication. It would create thousands of groups in our environment.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

First, they depend on AAD. If the data is not in AAD or is incorrect, the queries will not find the right people and you might end up sending information to the wrong recipients.

Second, Microsoft requires any user account that comes under the scope of a dynamic Office 365 Group to have an AAD premium license. That's fine if you have EMS or have bought the AAD licenses, but not so good otherwise. Perhaps they are changing their licensing policy - if so, that will be welcome and the right thing to do because dynamic email distribution groups are free.

But the big flaw in all of this is the dependency on AAD. If you are 100% perfect in maintaining AAD, you have a chance that this plan will work. If not, it won't. That's the reason why many large enterprises use processes tied to HR systems (which serve as the definitive source of reporting relationships) to generate groups (email DLs, not Office 365 groups).

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

Surprised to see this appear in my (and my customers') Message Center. At first blush this does seem like a very poor idea.

What if the manager already has a DL for their reports that they're happy with? They get a Group created anyway?

What if the manager already has a Group, or a Team that is being actively used? They get Yet Another Group created anyway?

Will the Group membership be auto-adjusted over time? Nothing indicates that it will.

If an auto-created Group is deleted, does it get recreated automatically later?

This seems like a semi-useful feature if it was opt-in, so you could carefully set up your reports/manager relationships, turn it on, and have them automatically created and managed. But as an opt-out feature, I am concerned this will mess up the GAL of many organizations, and mess it up quite badly.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

The feature is described as being an automatic group created of direct reports, so fundamentally the group must be based on the data for manager/reports in AAD. Where else would it get this information from.

I reckon it'll be an exception to the licensing requirements for AAD Premium, they aren't going to build another mechanism to do the same thing as an existing feature to work around a licensing limit.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

Luckily it answered the only question I needed, DISABLE!

I think this functionality will "junk up" Groups in a lot of people's environments. I do think having the option to "Create a Group Based on My Reports" would be a good idea, and do dynamic membership (like via AAD currently), but I dont think it is Microsofts job to make "business decisions" like this for an organization.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

Why are features like this that have such a massive impact on an environment, especially an extensive one (who, really, has their managedBy up to date?) being rolled out as opt-out? So many tenants are going to be littered with messy Groups as a result of this, I really struggle to imagine what went on in a meeting room to decide this was a good idea.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

Totally agree with Chris comment, this new feature if not properly communicated (I think in this case the message center is not enough) can drive into scenarios where Groups are going to be totally unmaneagable

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

I can see (I think) how this can be helpful in some cases and I can also appreciate the fact that we are given controls for this feature. And the advance communication, although as others have pointed out, the record proves that Message center entries are often overlooked, and with this regard a "default enabled" approach might/will have unwanted consequences. This is not the first example of such feature and Microsoft seems to be getting more and more agressive with them, which is definitely not a good thing.

I also agree that we need to know some more details before we can make a decision whether we want to use a feature like this. I'm also willing to bet few bucks that in order to start using this feature, some companies would need more control over it than just the "on/off" switch.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

turned up yesterday on the roadmap and the message center. I've immediately made a mental note to disable this today. DONE

Might be a good idea in theory, possibly for fresh tenants, but boy would this mess up my currently very clear organization of groups.I already have department groups that mostly represent hierarchy structures, no need for additional groups.Also the documentation lacks many scenarios as already described above.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

Pointless at best, positively disruptive at worst given we still don't have much in the way of tools for managing Groups in the first place. I can think of several things I'd prefer they spent the development time on doing or finishing:-

Group Soft Delete

Central IT access to All groups

Delve Search of private groups

Dynamic groups for all (not just AAD Premium)

Some way of navigating from groups to a central site

Better options for branding

Full set of SharePoint framework parts

I like Groups but please finish what you have before adding new stuff.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

Agree with Ivan and others. Organizational opt-in makes more sense. However, i think I understand the drivers: Most managers will likely create a similar group on their own, and those who don't already have one (one of the conditions of this automation) are missing out on a key collaborative tool. I would venture that the majority of people to whom this would apply are not as engaged -- and Microsoft views this new feature as an engagement tool designed to nudge them in the right direction.

Whether opt-in or opt-out, you still have the ability to rename or remove the direct reports group. What the automation can't do for us is add any dotted-line reports or supporting personnel who may not formally report to a manager, but who are part of the functional team. So regardless of the provisioning process, managers should review and modify, as needed.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

Hi Christophe, Having read the support page carefully one issue is a standout for me and not for the first time. There is an ongoing assumption that providing access via PowerShell is sufficient to control administration of Groups. With entry level features such as Direct Reports require a full UX because it cannot be the case that all admins are PowerShell capable (nor would. I wish them to be) but this immediately places an overhead on staff who are capable whose workload, capabilities and cost is high. I've mentioned this too over Classification of sites. I'm sure th intention is to provide this functionality over time through the UX but please consider more admin fundamentals ahead of release. Thank you.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

Hi Paul,

If the manager already has a group created it shouldn't create another group. Also if the auto-created group gets deleted it shouldn't be automatically recreated later. Group membership is NOT dynamic - so once it's auto-created the manager will have to add/remove members as appropriate.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

How ?

How does it know if they've already got a direct reports group ? Does it look at the membership of all their groups and see if they match with all direct report ? what if there was one non-direct report in a group would it then create a new group ?

What happens in future, if a new user gets to their 2nd direct report does the group get created ? or is this a one time thing ?

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

Well, if it's not dynamic, how exaclty are you going to sell the need for this at all? I sure hope you put this part in BIG letters in the documentation, as it can create all sorts of problems.

I could really see a use for such feature *if* it was dynamic, but even then had some reservations about the default opt-in. If it's not even dynamic, it should be disabled by default. Or something like a simple email notification to managers, with an embedded link to provision the group or similar, if they see the need for it.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

Presumably the statement means that a new auto-created group will not be created if an auto-created group already exists for the manager. Auto-created groups are identified by a property (GroupPersonification is set to "Groupsona:AutoDirectReports"), so I guess that is the check that is made.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

Presumably the statement means that a new auto-created group will not be created if an auto-created group already exists for the manager. Auto-created groups are identified by a property (GroupPersonification is set to "Groupsona:AutoDirectReports"), so I guess that is the check that is made.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

SCENARIO 1So my manager is responsible for a team called ITCS. So we have created a Group called ITCS. All of his direct reports are already part of this group. In this scenario, he would now have the ITCS group that was created by his choice, and a secondary group called "PG's Direct Reports" that have nothing to do with with the formal group.

SCENARIO 2We have a revolving door of sales managers coming and going. This has the potential to create all kinds of duplicates. Steve has a team of 3 sales reps. Group - Steve's Direct Report gets created. Steve leaves. 3 sales reps transition to Joe. Group - Joe's Direct Reports gets created. Steve's Direct Reports remains out there (abandoned with no owner, clogging up our GAL, increasing the number of unnecessary Groups in a list of Groups)

SCENARIO 3Manager John has a team called John's Direct Reports. John retires in June. All of his Team's documents, conversations, tasks, etc have been (carefully) loaded into this Group. Bill takes over. A Group gets created for Bill called "Bill's Direct Reports". Users from John's group now are confused and don't know if they should update files in John's old group, Bill's new group. John's old group is abandoned and a "mini migration" needs to be made of old content.

In each case, Microsoft would have auto-provisioned a group that either needs to be immediately deleted, or would prompt a migration of content (probably IT resources) to accommodate. The CONS list is immensely larger than the PROs list in every scenario I can think of.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

"If the manager already has a group created it shouldn't create another group.:

Exchange distribution group or Office 365 Group"? Auto-created Group or manually created Group?

Let's say you've got an IT Ops team, the manager is Jane Tulley, she has 4 direct reports (with relationships already set up in AD), and they have one of the following *already in place*...

1) A distribution group (little g) named "IT Operations" that they use for email communication only. They're happy with this and deliberately have chosen an Exchange distribution group for this purpose (especially now that emails sent to Groups don't get delivered to the sender), and they manage the membership of the Exchange distribution group as needed. With Groups auto-creation, they'll also end up with a "Jane Tulley Direct Reports" Group (big G), and now they have two things to manage the membership of. Or they delete the unneeded Group, which you say won't be recreated. How does it know not to recreate? Can anything trigger re-creation of an auto-created Group, like a change in Manager/Reports relationships?

2) A Group (big G) called "IT Operations" that they use for email comms, Planner, Teams, file storage, OneNote stuff, all the good things that Groups provide, because they've bought into the Groups concept. Does auto-creation still create a "Jane Tulley Direct Reports" Group for them with the exact same members? If so, it has done so for no benefit whatsoever.

This whole conversation would be different if the feature was opt-in and the behavior was communicated more clearly from the outset. We'd be discussing with customers how best to leverage the feature, e.g. by setting up all your Manager/Reports relationships first, letting managers know they'll get this Group to communicate with their direct reports, then flipping the switch to enable auto-creation (PS - a way to phase the roll out of this within your tenant would be helpful, to avoid Help Desk overwhelm when hundreds/thousands of Groups suddenly appear).

But as Vasil has already mentioned, the value of this feature is diminished by the lack of dynamic membership. For the average Joe Bloggs or Jane Doe, having a Group of their direct reports that they can easily send email to is a nice thing to have, but having to maintain membership is a pain. That's the sort of thing they expect technology to solve for them, e.g. by having the Manager/Reports relationships all set up properly and maintained by IT or a HR system ongoing.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

I normally don't mind things being auto opted-in but I believe this is one of the features that you should start with turned off and allow opt-in. I can see the advantage of the feature but I don't know anyone who has ManagedBy setup 100% properly, especially at large enterprises.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

I saw this first thing this morning after I logged in and couldn't believe that this was to be automatically setup. Then I saw I could disable it. I immediately did. Fortunately no groups were created.

I then thought how if I had been on vacation for a couple weeks and these Groups started showing up without warning how my users would have reacted. It would not have been a positive reaction.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

Since we are in the process of rolling out Office 365, we have turned off Group creation by staff until we get some educational/policy work done. If we do turn on Group creation by staff, I will be disabling this feature. Although it seems like a nice convenient way to auto create groups for managers, many of our managers have their direct reports separated into specific teams they work with. Adding another group for all will just add to the clutter and confusion.

The other factor is maintenance. We already have a tough time monitoring staff changes. This would just add to it unless it's set up to dynamically change when updates are done to AD. Since we don't have AD premium, I am guessing that won't be happening.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

An Office 365 Group will be autocreated if there exists a distribution group, however if the manager and direct reports have an Office 365 Group(manual or autocreated) then another Group will not be created.

1) We only create a Group one time regardless of if the manager deletes or uses the group. We also don't create another Group if the manager moves teams.

2) No. Regardless of the name of the Group, if the membership of the existing Group consists of the manger and direct reports we will not auto create another one.

We have decided to go with the approach of non dynamic membership, because we find that many teams include admins, external members, vendors, etc., who are not necessarily part of the reporting chain. We wanted to allow group owners to flexibly update the group membership if needed.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

First of all, Kudos is deserved @Christophe Fiessinger for making this change known via the message center in a timely manner, and making sure people know how to opt-out. And while some of you have pointed out that not all admins read the message center, Microsoft is in a tough spot finding a way to effectively communicate to everyone (if you have figured out how to do it in your company, please share!).

I also assume the logic behind this change is to drive adoption. Again, I can see the logic behind those thoughts since we also struggle with getting our internal users to understand all of the tools available in O365. If you can lead them to water by creating Groups for them, then perhaps they'll take a drink (and drive adoption which is probably how the PG gets compensated$)

But we'll be turning this auto-creation off. Too many things that can go wrong with this that outweigh the possible rewards. And from a bigger picture, this is so close timewise to the launch of Teams where people in our company are already asking if we should create a Team from every Team/Group.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

"We have decided to go with the approach of non dynamic membership, because we find that many teams include admins, external members, vendors, etc., who are not necessarily part of the reporting chain. We wanted to allow group owners to flexibly update the group membership if needed."

@Madhuri Tondepu But how many admins, external members, or vendors would go in a group of direct reports?

If you're going to create a group called "John Doe Direct Reports", then that name seems odd if it turns out to be "John Doe Direct Reports + Some External Vendors and Some IT Admins", doesn't it?

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

Does making these changes update everything about the Group? Last time I checked it only changed the display name, but all the URLs, email address, etc still remain the same. Not the best experience if a new manager came in and you're still emailing to the old manager's name or seeing the old manager's name in all the URLs. Not only does that not look right, it can confuse new users who weren't there when the manager change occurred and don't understand the context :(

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

I agree that many managers will want groups like this. But would someone name their group "my direct reports?" I would hope that the name would be aligned with what the group does, not who currently at this moment in time happens to be the designated "manager." What happens when the "manager" leaves the organization but the team still exists? What if they forget to make a new owner for the group? Do the O365 Admins have the time to manage and govern all this? What happens when the manager changes jobs and now has new direct reports at the same company? How is the poor team member going to know where to store content when they are still getting the hang of OneDrive vs. team sites? There are just so many use cases where automatic creation of "direct report" groups doesn't make sense. It would be great if a manager could specify the creation of a group that includes her or his direct reports as part of Group provisioning and then configure it to include who else should be in it and name it at the time of creation, not after the fact. I agree with everyone suggesting this should be opt-in or one click to turn it off. It's very scary from a governance perspective!

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

How's that going to work? If Jane and Dianne and Michelle (who's an external user) report to Joanna, and Joanna has a group called "the fully sick party squad" with Jane and Dianne and Michelle in it; will there be some magical method of deduction that determine's that it's aligned with the groups that would otherwise be automatically created?

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

This is one of the worst ideas I've seen come out of Redmond for years, if not ever. And that's saying something.

I've NEVER seen an organization with more than a few hundred people where the Active Directory data is even close to useful. Two of the prime things that are almost always wrong are Department and Manager. Manager most often contains the person you originally worked for when you were hired - if it contains anyone. There's a reason why Hyperfish is a fantastic product idea. So I would wager that a HUGE percentage of the Groups which would be gcreated are going to be meaningless.

Managers have all sorts of ways they work with their employees. If they want to use a Group, that's great, but assuming that it's the right answer for every manager who uses Office 365 is ridiculous. If I have two employees who sit right there with me, I'll never use the Group, even if it's a great idea.

Most people who use SharePoint - even after all these years - struggle with where to "put their stuff". This will automatically create Yet Another Location for Stuff which they will need to rationalize against. Again, they may get it and they may not, but if they don't WANT the Group, then why on earth would you create it?

Managers come and go, there are dotted line reporting structueres, etc. There is simply no way that all of the most common scenarios can possibly be covered here. Any decent-sized organization is going to end up with hundreds or thousands of orphaned or useless Groups.

What about all the governance questions? What happens when a Manager leaves? How does the content in a Group get archived or preserved if a position is eliminated? People sometimes have more than one manager - for real. AD has never supported this, and the Group here won't either - at least well.

The list of reasons why this shouldn't happen is incredibly long, and the reasons that make it a good idea are few - assuming there are any. I can only guess that it's yet another instance where someone at Microsoft's bonus is tied to the number of Groups "deployed". Full speed ahead and **bleep** the customers.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

Madhuri Tondepu wrote:

We wanted to allow group owners to flexibly update the group membership if needed.

That sounds like something that should be a user-selectable option then. A simple toggle for the Group owner to say whether they want it dynamically maintained based on the AD manager/reports relationships, or manually maintained.

Apologies too if this discussion is become fragmented. We're all clearly brainstorming out "what if's" and the way these forums sort replies starts to get a bit confusing.

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

I still haven't quite got my head wrapped around why aren't new features turned off by default and then enabled by admins after they've had time to craft the appropriate communications plan. If that's too tricky why not be able to set your tenant so that new features are either enabled or disabled by default? Why is new functionality being forced?

Re: Manage automatic creation of direct reports group

This doesnt make sense, how on earth would it know that?

For scenario 1, I created the Group on his behalf. So I don't know how the system would assume that, unless it is looking at all users, and all groups that MIGHT contain all of their direct reports, and assume that is a "Direct Reports" group. Note, there are some non-direct reports in the Group as well.

For Scenario 3, the assumption is we are a few days behind re-assigning Group owner. I'm assuming the job to create Groups runs on a fairly recent schedule. So unless we are on the ball for terminations and moves (which we are always not), I do believe this would create a competing Group.